Bright prospects put GCU on turn to outdoor season

Friday, March 20

Phoenix, AZ

Grand Canyon

Cody McBride Invitational

3/20/2026 10:25:00 AM | Track and Field, Paul Coro

After 4 indoor titles, tradition-laden Lopes gear up for1st outdoor season in MW

By: Paul Coro

When conquering the turn on a track, runners have to lean in to be faster and drive ahead.

That is where Grand Canyon track and field is as a whole as it hits the curve of its first Mountain West season, coming out of indoor season and entered the start of outdoor season with the local Cody McBride Invitational.

The landscape has leveled up greatly with dominant Colorado State men's and New Mexico women's programs being the heavy Mountain West favorites, but GCU track and field made its first conference imprint with four MW indoor championships.

Graduate Justin Raines claimed half of those, becoming the only multi-event winner at Mountain West Indoor Championships last month when he captured gold medals in the 60- and 200-meter races despite not being cleared following knee surgery until mid-December.

"Every week, we got better and better," said GCU head coach Tom Flood, who won at least one conference team title for 12 consecutive years in the WAC. "What he did was really neat to see at conference. I wish we'd had another couple weeks, if not another month, I think we would've got him to nationals again."

Lopes senior Miguel Rosario III also is a sprints threat after a hamstring issue played a factor at indoors, where he still placed third in the 60.

Flood said Raines and Rosario are potential NCAA Championships qualifiers in the 100 and 200 and could combine with seniors Jacob Holguin and Conner Kittleson on a 400-meter relay national qualification.

"Justin and Miguel both had top-five all-time Mountain West marks in the 60 and 200, and I would expect the same outdoor," Flood said. "They probably will be pushing those top-five times in the 100 and 200. That 4x1 relay is going to be really fun to watch if we keep everybody healthy."

Ben Stratman, a senior from South Dakota, also is expected to be a spring threat with the outdoor season suiting his 6-foot-1 frame better to pursue GCU's 400 outdoor record.

Another indoor record-breaker, senior Germain LeMaitre of France, finished an ill-ridden indoor season with a third-place 800 run at MW Indoors and projects to do well in a healthier spring.

With WAC champion hurdler Prosper Ekporere needing knee surgery after a car hit him bicycling, GCU junior Francisco Marques and graduate Manny Joseph stepped up to take two of the top four MW Indoors' spots in the 60 hurdles, with Joseph missing a championship by one-hundredth of a second.

"I'm excited to see what they can do outdoor also," Flood said. "I think they're both better outdoor hurdlers."

In the field, former WAC javelin champion Ben Moffett is likely out for the season, but senior Jacob Nash has shown continuous improvement in the event.

Junior Harrison Cornell will get to flex his specialty in the discus throw now that the season moves outdoors, where the Lopes will be boosted by sophomore Godwin Charles and junior Osita Gift Ogbo in the long jump and triple jumps and juniors Weston Means and Antoni Smith in the high jump.

The GCU women's side also is highlighted by the sprints, where sophomore Nina Thevenin starred at the Mountain West Indoor Championships by winning the 60 and breaking a 15-year-old GCU record in the 200. The sophomore from France nearly won both events but came in second in the 200 to a runner who received a better lane in a different heat. She teams with sophomore Cassie Small for another GCU dynamic sprint duo.

"Those two will be the catalysts on the women's side to score big points in the 100 and 200 hopefully and help the 4x1 relay," Flood said.

The Lopes' other MW Indoors title came from the pole vault, where junior teammates Eva Lowder of Idaho and Tatum Moku of Hawaii took the conference's top two spots. Lowder cleared 14 feet and 3/4 of an inch to reset the GCU record she had broken repeatedly. She was an inch shy of an NCAA Indoor Championships qualification.

"Eva and Tatum are the 1-2 punch," Flood said. "We may redshirt Tatum with a back issue. They push each other in practice every day. That'll be fun to watch. If they both do jump, they should easily qualify for nationals. So the women's pole vault is very big strength for us."

Taliyah Booker, a junior for the outdoor season, will vie in one of the conference's most loaded events – the 400. She already holds a GCU 400 record after taking fourth at MW Indoors.

"Our women's 4x4 will still be legit," Flood said. "We lose Aaliyah Rifort-Delem and Alyssa Blockburger, but I'm also really excited with Nina and the cast of characters in there. When you add Atena Rayson, she's looked really good. That quarter, whoever it is going to be, should push our school record. Hopefully, that's a regional qualifier and maybe qualify for the NCs (NCAA Championships)."

In March, GCU graduate Maria Sartin won a 400 hurdles national championship in New Zealand to also set a Lopes record. Flood said Sartin is poised to break the 60-second mark soon.

In the field, the Lopes suffered a setback with a neck injury to graduate Taryn Burkett, who was last season's WAC Indoors triple jump champion.

"She'll really be a force in that triple jump at the conference level this year," Flood said.

Graduate Amanda Thrue of Jamaica also is expected to score well or push for conference championships in the long jump and triple jump.

Because of Arizona's cancellation of the Willie Williams Classic, GCU is starting its season Friday and Saturday at the Cody McBride Invitational at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix. A six-meet outdoor schedule in the regular season will prep the Lopes for their first Mountain West Outdoor Championships on May 14-16 in Clovis, California.